Sequoia National Park smog hurting trees

A visitor sizes up the General Sherman Tree in Sequoia National Park in this photo from 2002. The home to some of the oldest living things on earth is suffering from smog in the San Joaquin Valley. RON COBB, KRT

SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK – On a clear day, the view from Beetle Rock in Sequoia National Park extends west for 105 miles across the patchwork of crops in California's agricultural heartland to the Coast Mountains and the Pacific Ocean beyond.

The problem is there are few clear days, even at 6,200 feet.

The Sierra Nevada forest that is home to the biggest and among the oldest living things on earth – the giant Sequoia redwoods – also suffers a dubious distinction. It has the worst air pollution of any national park in the country, according to National Park Service and Environmental Protection Agency measures.

Mountaintops that should offer awe-inspiring views of California's geologic grandeur often are muddled by a disorienting gray soup of smog.

"Ozone levels here are comparable to urban settings such as L.A.," said Emily Schrepf of the nonprofit advocacy group the National Park Conservation Association as she beheld the diminished view. "It's just not right."

This is not the place to take in a whiff of fresh mountain air. Smog is so bad that signs in visitors centers caution guests when it's not safe to hike. The government employment website warns job applicants that the workplace is unhealthy. And park workers are schooled every year on the lung and heart damage the pollution can cause.

Ozone also is to blame for weakening many stands of the park's Jeffrey and ponderosa pines, leaving telltale yellowing of their long needles. Instead of absorbing carbon dioxide, they soak up ozone through the stoma in their needles, which inhibits photosynthesis. Ozone also stresses young redwood seedlings, which already face challenges to survival.

Although weakened trees are more susceptible to drought and pests, the long-term impact on the pines and on the giant redwoods that have been around for 3,000 years and more is unclear.

'CANARY IN A COALMINE'

"It's not a great story to tell, but it's an important story to tell because you can look at us as being the proverbial canary in a coalmine," said Annie Esperanza, a park scientist who has studied air quality there for 30 years. "If this is happening in a national park that isn't even close to an urban area, what do you think is happening in your back yard?"

It's a problem in a handful of the nation's 52 parks that are monitored constantly for ozone, including Joshua Tree National Park in California's Mojave Desert and North Carolina's Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which is ringed by power plants and several major highways including Interstate 40, a major tractor-trailer shipping route. But none is in the ballpark with Sequoia and its neighbor, Kings Canyon.

Under the Clean Air Act, the region that encompasses Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks has been designated a "Class 1 air shed," which means by 2064 it must have pure air with no degradation of visibility. But that apparently didn't take into consideration its proximity to one of the worst air quality basins in the country.

"It does take visitors by surprise," Esperanza said. "On a day it's unhealthy, we ask people if you're going to do a rigorous hike, we recommend early morning. It's limiting, it's quite telling, and it's very sad."

SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY POLLUTION

While forest fires create some pollution, the lion's share comes from the San Joaquin Valley, the expanse of farmland that is home to the California's two busiest north-south trucking highways, diesel freight train corridors, 1.7 million dairy cows, food processing plants and tens of thousands of diesel tractors plowing dusty fields. Its trough shape traps pollutants, and high-pressure systems act like a lid on a pot.

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A visitor sizes up the General Sherman Tree in Sequoia National Park in this photo from 2002. The home to some of the oldest living things on earth is suffering from smog in the San Joaquin Valley. RON COBB, KRT
In this May 11 photo, Sequoia National Park air resource specialist Annie Esperanza explains how ozone diminishes the view from Beetle Rock in Sequoia National Park. A big-city problem has settled in a big way in Sequoia National Park, home of the giant Sequoias. Smog from the neighboring Central Valley is making it tougher for seedlings from the giants to take hold, and the needles of surrounding Jeffrey and Ponderosa pines are yellowing. TRACIE CONE, AP
In this May 11 photo, the view from Beetle Rock in Sequoia National Park is seen. TRACIE CONE, AP
In this May 11 photo, Jeffrey and Ponderosa pines show telltale signs of yellowing, a symptom of ozone toxicity, in Sequoia National Park. TRACIE CONE, AP

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